Aug 29, 2021 15:00:00

Why should charities hold 'painful challenges' to collect donations?

by

Kymberly Janisch

In a charity that collects donations to charities, participants and stakeholders may take on various challenges. One example is the long-distance charity marathon, where other challenges such as running in underwear , shaving hair , abstaining from alcohol , and sleeping outdoors are being held to solicit donations. Thus, the benefits of taking a painful challenge for charity are explained by Gary Mortimer, a marketing professor at Queensland University of Technology.

The Martyrdom Effect: When Pain and Effort Increase Prosocial Contributions --Olivola --2013 --Journal of Behavioral Decision Making --Wiley Online Library
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bdm.767

The'martyrdom effect': why your pain boosts a charity's gain
https://theconversation.com/the-martyrdom-effect-why-your-pain-boosts-a-charitys-gain-164486

Even a philanthropic person has a limited amount of money that an individual can donate, so it makes sense to take a prominent challenge for charity and get the attention of others. However, if you just want to get attention, you don't necessarily have to hold a marathon that has a high hurdle to participate in, or spread the 'Ice Bucket Challenge' that puts cold ice water on your head. It is possible to collect.

However, Mortimer and colleagues point out that holding a painful challenge for a charity appeals to one's psychology that 'it takes pain to get something.' For example, there are companies and organizations in the world that promote 'devices that make it easy to diet' and 'how to make a lot of money without difficulty', but past research results show that people do not have such 'hardship or pain'. He is skeptical about 'getting only profits', and this tendency is also affecting the donation activities to charitable organizations.

In 2011, a research team of Professor

Elder Shafir of Princeton University and Christopher Olivora of Warwick University (associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University at the time of writing) conducted multiple experiments, and the people who donated were 'painful.' We have found that participating in the Challenge has the effect of boosting donations to charitable organizations. This effect is called the 'martyrdom effect'.

In the first experiment, whether subjects will be assigned to either a 'charity picnic' or a '5 mile charity run' and will pay any donation to participate in the charity picnic or charity run. Asked. As a result of the experiment, 86% accepted to participate in a charity picnic, and 76% of charity runs were considered to be more painful. On the other hand, looking at the amount of donations that participants can freely decide, the average number of charity picnic participants was $ 13.88 (about 1500 yen), while the average amount of charity run was about $ 23.87 (about 2600 yen). It was doubled.

In the second experiment, each subject was given a budget of $ 5, and he told them that he could donate any amount of it to a public pool facility. Also, tell some participants, 'If you soak your hands in painfully cold water for 1 minute, twice the amount you donated will be donated to public pool facilities,' and soak your hands in the water. He asked if he would like. As a result, the subjects who put up with the pain and soaked their hands in cold water donated 25% more than the subjects who avoided the pain.

In the third experiment, subjects were assigned to one of 1 to 20 miles (1.6 to 32 km), how much to donate to participate in a charity run at this distance, and how much to run that distance. I asked if it would be painful or hard work. Then, although there was no significant correlation between the donation amount and the mileage, it turned out that 'evaluation of the pain and effort required to run' is an important factor in determining the donation amount. ..

In the fourth experiment, as in the first experiment, subjects were assigned to a 'charity picnic' or a '5-mile charity run' and asked if they would like to participate and how much they would donate. However, before that, he asked the subject, 'How meaningful is the experience and donation of participating in the charity?' And asked them to answer. As a result, the subjects thought that the charity run was significantly more meaningful than the charity picnic, and the donation amount was 5.74 euros (about 740 yen) for the charity picnic and 17.95 euros (about 2300 yen) for the charity run, which is a triple difference. Came out.

In the fifth experiment, in order to investigate the relationship between the content of the charity event and the donation target, the subjects were asked to 'fast to support children with food shortages', 'picnic to support children with food shortages', and 'parks'. We presented four scenarios, 'fasting to donate to the park' and 'having a picnic to donate to the park,' and investigated how the donation amount would change.

The graph below shows the results. Donations to 'Public Park' were more 'Picnic' than 'Fast', and 'Starving children'. You can see that fasting is more than a picnic for donations to. On the other hand, picnics with less pain had a higher participation rate than fasting. From this result, we can see the tendency that the donation amount will be higher if the purpose of the donation and the content of the charity event are matched.

From a series of experiments, we can see the existence of a 'martyrdom effect' in which the donation amount is higher for the subjects who participated in the painful challenge. As a result, charities struggling to raise funds may be able to raise more donations by holding some kind of painful event, Mortimer and colleagues said.